The Tiger's Den
by MaRuX
Summary: She carefully closed the door behind her, shoulders sagging in relief as she leaned onto the white painted wood - all it needed was a red stripe in the middle, really. - Now a two-shot
1. The Tiger's Den

**Author's Note: It's official. I am a screwy procrastinating fangirl.**

**This is for a deviantart KB:SD pairing contest. A few more details at the end of the oneshot.**

**Disclaimer: THIS IS PURELY FAN-MADE!**

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><p><span>The Tiger's Den<span>

- "You guys! This is totally wrong!" Kendal whispered fiercely, slightly behind the small group.

The three girls didn't spare a glance towards the younger one this time. Brittany rolled her eyes when the blonde started muttering something about the rules again.

- "Oh, just give it a rest, Kennedy!" This time, the girl paused in her increasingly panicked speech. _Silly girl, _Brittany shook her head fondly. _She really needs some fun in her life._

- "It's Kendall." The blonde finally replied in a flat tone, standing still, looking very much like the child the preteen tries very hard not to be.

The rest of the group paused as well, heads turning towards her curiously. Danika, after a moment of pondering, broke the silence with her gentle, childlike voice:

- "Yeah, that's a much better name."

And just like that, the relationship between them seemed to take some kind of shape. All of a sudden, Kendall felt drained, unable to voice any sort of disapproval anymore, like she was part of this group's business, tied to them in an invisible, strange way. She was a bit spooked as she couldn't comprehend that friendship was weird just like that and that this was a way it could be born; but, as the older girls started quietly walking down the hallway once more, she found herself following them, an odd sense of panic and excitement pounding fiercely in her veins. (... was this how adrenaline was like?)

She just met these girls when given the dorm she would be sleeping in for the next two days. The field trip was organized mainly for this year's graduates who wanted to do something a little more than just a farewell/graduation party. Anyone from the school was allowed to come as long as they were to be on their best behavior (she had NO idea how Clarence had been granted permission _from anyone at all_ to be on this field trip by the way). These three girls (Brittany, Paula and Danika) were among the aforementioned graduates, thus only about one year older then Kendall herself. But it made all the difference, much to the blonde's growing sense of frustration.

They were wandering down the halls of the building they rented for the two nights (in which the entire group -of over 50 students- slept, not to mention the teachers). In the middle of the night. In their pajamas. Way after curfew. _Against the rules_. And Kendall couldn't do a thing about it.

Hence the situation she was in. Torn between her usual way of dealing with rule breakers (warn and/or threat and/or snitch to the nearest authority figure) and the odd feeling that it wouldn't be right if she acted like she usually does in this situation. They were _older _than her, she thought helplessly as she bit her lip, and who was _she_ to boss them around? She felt a strange sense of loyalty towards them now, like it was a sort of adventure (_illegalwrongstupid_ – she quickly snuffed out that train of thought). It was like a way of bonding. _A scary way of bonding._

And Kendall was confused by this thought, seeing as they had just met a few hours ago and they were so different than her, older, why would they want her to tag along, they're more mature than her but then why were they doing this then, this was breaking the rules and they were not supposed to be doing many things and maybe she was just reading too much into this but she was panicking now, she was aware of that because she was rambling and she rambled when panicked…

- "What's that?" she suddenly gasped, frozen on the spot, ears straining, trying to find something to back up her paranoid, rule-loving brain. She had never _ever_ done such a thing before, she couldn't stand the mere possibility of getting caught red-handed because she was a good girl and she didn't want to get in trouble and her brain was rambling again...

They all stood still in silence, their limbs in a freeze-like state in different kinds of positions, eyes roaming and ears listening intently. Maybe it had really been something or maybe she just wasn't the only one tense to the point of hearing things, because Paula quietly hissed "Someone's coming!" and they all ran like headless chickens, their little group splitting up in random directions.

Kendall didn't know what was going on anymore, where she was running off to or even why or from who but she had only one thing in mind: _hide!_ It was too risky to keep running around the halls until she was sure there was nobody around. In the end, she somehow came to the decision that a random door, with darkness peeking from under the threshold (like all the other dorm rooms) was a good enough place to go into and hide. She quickly got in, closing the door silently behind her.

_Am I back in my own room?_ She thought as she blinked in confusion, trying to make sense of the shapes in the dark room. She came to the conclusion that, sadly, she was not, seeing as there were only two beds in this dorm. Thanks to the light coming from the window she could distinguish the outlines of several objects scattered here and there, along with a suitcase and two duffel bags. Well, no wonder she thought it was her dorm. This one was almost as messy as ¾ of her own, the parts her roommates occupied. (_Was she seriously the only organized one from this entire field trip group?_)

She noticed that only one bed was occupied by a dark average-sized lump, faint mutterings and snores coming out from underneath the sheets. Although the other bed wasn't quite untouched, she could guess that the single person occupying the room was using it to lay tomorrow's clothes on or just put stuff he/she wanted to keep off the floor.

Suddenly, Kendall heard shuffling in the hallway, too close for comfort to the room she was currently in. Panicking, she decided she couldn't risk to be caught by assuming it was just one of her roommates. So she came to a quick decision: walking as quickly and quietly as possible across the room, she carefully lifted a corner of the blanket from the (more or less) unoccupied bed and sneaked under the covers, careful not to wrinkle the sheets or make the mattress creak under her weight. She shut her eyes tightly as she tried to calm her frantically beating heart, waiting and feeling like a tiny, helpless little mouse.

The silence gradually became less hostile to her ears and she felt her shoulders relax a bit. In order to plan a safe escape route, she then decided to try and figure out where she was at the moment; she let her eyes take in the room once more, slowly adjusting to the darkness. It was then that she noticed a relatively small lump on the other side of the bed. Eyebrows raised at the sight of the strange shape she couldn't quite figure out, Kendall shifted closer (cautiously, painfully slow) towards the center of the bed.

As her attention was now aimed towards the thing in front of her eyes, she could now faintly hear an odd sound coming from it, similar to a rumble but not really like that. Like a quiet hum, a slight vibration or something. Kendall was still trying to make sense of this phenomenon (was it some kind of electronic device? _But considering the size of it…_ a stuffed toy with rechargeable batteries?) when the lump rolled over on its own and her mind went _completely blank_ as the serenely sleeping face of Clarence Buttowski was now in front of her wide eyes.

She quickly bit her tongue as her entire body stiffened against the soft mattress, too afraid now to even _breathe_. Kendall realized with sudden clarity that she was too shocked right now to feel embarrassed by the situation she was in. And she had to make sure that Kick stayed asleep, otherwise she'll never hear the end of it (she would've gulped at the thought if she wasn't so afraid that even the slightest noise and/or motion could wake him up).

Willing to come to a more reasonable state of mind in order to get out of this unscathed, she tried to calm down. Breathing as quietly as possible, she tried to slow down her now hysterically beating heart. It seemed a harder thing to do than before, now fully aware of the sleeping boy beside her. _Of course, of courseOFCOURSE!_ her mind was yelling hysterically even as she felt herself became rational once more. Kick was so tiny; it made sense that she didn't notice him in the dark when she first entered. As she took in the sight of him once more, she noticed that he seemed even smaller than usual, curled up under the sheets, his round little head (he even _sleeps_ with his crash helmet on?) sinking into the big (compared to him) fluffy pillow.

As Kendall gradually relaxed she kept her eyes intently on his face, eying him warily (she really _really_ didn't want him to wake up). It was so odd, Kendall mused. She'd never seen him like this… with his eyes closed, without that steely gaze that seemed to always get on her nerves, as if he could read her oh-so-easily. But, her original thought, according to which she'd never stood this close to him before –she bit her lip as she realized- was a lie. She did, once, actually.

It was kinda like now; in a dark place, just the two of them… kind of (she was now aware that Gunther was the one snoozing in the other bed, by the way). At that time he unexpectedly barged in (kind of like the way she did now… minus the loud noise) and sat next to her, on her right side. Just like where he was now.

As she kept staring in the dark at his sleeping form she remembered the feeling of him being so much _closer_ to her face than now and how surprisingly _nice_ (_amazing_) it had felt because he did it so well, with his attitude of "_I am __**going to do it**__ no matter what"_, despite him spitting her drink on the floor to wash his mouth afterwards and because it had been her very first kiss. He gave her something the way it should be given (with the outright intention of it being given), she couldn't complain about that even to herself. _Do it all and then some_. Maybe that was why a smile slowly crept on her face as soon as he ended the kiss back then, as for those few couple of moments she felt like she was falling in love with him.

- "What do you want from me, Kick?" she mouthed, her words mute to anyone's ears but her eyes glazed over, uncharacteristically melancholic now as she watched him. She didn't even know what she meant herself. He responded with a slight frown on his face, as if sensing her mood in his sleep.

Kendall, while trying to stay still and not risk waking him up any further, heard it again; that sound that made her notice Kick's presence in the first place. But now, hearing it more clearly, she was confused. It was clearly coming from the sleeping boy beside her but she couldn't really explain how. It wouldn't make sense to come from his pockets; and, she realized with a blush creeping up her neck…he didn't have any pockets. (She remembered how she teased Clarence the other day about him being so small he didn't need anything larger than a tiny backpack to carry his clothes in during the field trip; Jackie promptly answered that he didn't need anything bigger because he only took the bare necessities and spare jumpsuits and that, besides, he didn't need pajamas since he sleeps in his underwear. Kick had the grace to promptly face-palm at that.)

Watching him now more carefully, Kendall had an epiphany. It sounded just like her cat. And she suddenly felt her mind going completely blank once more when she realized what was happening.

Clarence _freakin'_ Buttowski… was purring in his sleep. Kendall listened to it more closely. Yes, purring. Not snoring, _purring_. It was such a quiet sound though, constant but soft, it melded into the background yet unmistakably there. No wonder she didn't hear it until she calmed herself down enough to pay attention to her surroundings.

It was such an unusual thought; she never would've thought that the loud, chaotic, reckless daredevil could produce such a relaxed and equally relaxing sound. Kendall closed her eyes; her head, heavy with all her thoughts, sank slowly into the pillow, right next to his. The sound coming from Kick was now filling her ears and the steady vibration seemed everywhere around her now. It was just like home, sleeping with her cat curled up on her chest only this time there was no fur on her face to tickle her nose and make her sneeze.

It felt nice, the smell of the sheets foreign (masculine?) but decidedly pleasant, she just wanted to lie down for a bit. Kendall felt the tension easily melting off her bones, dripping out of her system and crumbling into nothingness by the sensual sound of a sated feline…

Too bad she couldn't allow herself to fall asleep (_She couldn't. She wouldn't. She won'tshewon't…_). The faintest of sounds barely poked her sleepy, purring-filled brain. She unconsciously frowned into the pillow. There it was again. Go away, I want to sle-…

- "Kendall!" harsh, frantic whisper shattered any tranquility within her mind. Eyes popping open, she became once more aware of her situation. She looked at Kick once more, eyes wide. _Oh crudohcrudohcrud… _

- "Kendall, are you here?" Danika, sweet, caring Danika. _They came back for me_, she realized with no little surprise.

Slowly, ever so carefully, Kendall slipped out from underneath the covers, careful not to make the mattress shift too suddenly because of the lack of weight. Seeing Kick's childlike bare torso shift to lean towards the pillow some more, Kendall delicately made sure to keep him properly tucked in (honestly, with the lack of puberty on his form he tended to stir awake any girl's motherly instincts sometimes). She _really_ didn't know why she felt her face heat up as he curled up even more, towards her side of the bed (_it wasn't hers_, she had just lied there for a moment), then inhaled noisily and exhaled with a deep rich purr that made her stomach feel funny. _It was still warm_, she realized; _and since she was bigger than him, she had warmed a larger part of the bed. He likes to stay warm…_

- "Kendall?" it was closer this time but the voice was calmer and quieter. Paula.

Kendall slowly tiptoed across the room, careful not to trip onto something (wouldn't that be peachy?). She carefully closed the door behind her, shoulders sagging in relief as she leaned onto the white painted wood (all it needed was a red stripe in the middle, really). Eyes, closed, head towards the neon light bulbs on the ceiling, she thanked in her mind whatever deity it was that helped her survive such difficult moments (no, she wasn't being overly dramatic).

The other three girls approached her silently with questioning, curious looks on their pretty faces.

- "Are you okay?" Brittany asked her in concern. _They care about me_, Kendall realized as she looked at all three of them, warmth polling in her belly.

- "Yeah, I guess." She swallowed the lump of embarrassment in her throat as she refused to think about what just had happened a few minutes ago. She couldn't tell them, not when even she couldn't understand it herself. Perhaps they knew more about these kind of situations, but she somehow wanted to understand herself first before attempting to talk to anyone else about it.

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><p>- "What happened anyway?" Kendall asked as she brushed her hair before (<em>finally<em>) going to bed. She was referring to the incident that made them split up and started the entire ridiculous series of events. She felt like she had the right to know more than anyone else in the entire world, considering what she'd been through.

- "No idea." Brittany shrugged from underneath her covers. "Maybe it was a teacher patrolling down the hall or maybe it was just the wind. Could've been just our own imaginations, too."

- "What, I panicked." Paula muttered uncaring, fluffing up her pillow and dropping it one her bed. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

Kendall griped her blanket more tightly as she was now in her own bed; her stomach twisted uncomfortably, coming to terms with the fact that it was just that way of thinking that had gotten her into the situation of sneaking into Kick Buttowski's bed in the middle of the night. She swallowed hard and tried to think about _something else other than…_

- "Come on." Danika sent them all a warm, motherly look as she said that. She then turned the lights off. "Let's all get some sleep."

…_darkness and a boy who was close enough that he takes a deep breath and ohmyhe'skissingme and purringpurringpurring… _

Kendall closed her eyes as her brain whispered sleepily, incoherently, exhausted and aware of the total, deep, empty silence all around them…

**The End**

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><p><strong>Man, am I a truly hopeless obsessive romantic or what? Yes, yes I am. I write weird somewhat-love stories with cartoon characters, yeah. :| <strong>  
><strong>To all my friends who may see this: this is a side of me you just didn't get the change to see before. Please don't flip. Much. <strong>

**Anyway, this is my entry for Mina's KB romantic pairings contest : .com/ Cuz she's awesome like that and I love KB:SD sofreakingmuch.**

**I didn't even intent to make the story mood so... deep (dunno if it really is that much) and sentimental and stuff. Like Kick would say: "Mushy...stuff...". Whatdontjudgeme.**  
><strong>It was about the only idea I liked that could be written in one single chapter. The whole running aroung the halls thing was inspired by real life; I had to find a way to make Kendall get to see Kick like that (cuz it's freakin' adorable) but since she loves the rules I had to give her some friends she couldn't say no to. Sorry if it ended up somewhat OOC. :P I'm still experimenting to define my writing style whenever I get the change (which frankly is not really often at all...).<strong>  
><strong>I will not even imagine how much furter things could have gone. They're still kids. It just feels... wrong. :C<strong>

**Maybe I'll do a sequel to this some day... **


	2. TTD2: Sniff and Prowl

**A.N.: Okay, I've gotten sick of having this on my drafts section so I just trimmed it as best as I could. Really, it's not that great. **

**...And I can't seem to even find the right way to make it nice and simple. I've been struggling not to write any more that this. Seriously, I have a schedule as busy as biscuits, I don't really have time to do these sorts of things. (Alas, what can you do when your brain knows what you really would prefer doing...?) **

**Disclaimer: This is fan-made.  
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><p>The moment Kick opened his eyes and acknowledged the existence of the real world – after the usual overcome of drowsiness- he also became aware of a peculiar feeling that seemed to have followed him from his subconscious.<p>

It was like an indistinct voice from somewhere deep, a nagging statement wordlessly expressed in and from the back of his mind, one which he had yet to decipher. Like one of those rare times when he had had a meaningful, intense dream – and which he could not recall afterwards, except for a vague, empty feeling in his chest that made him cranky and frustrated the following day.

Maybe that's what it was.

Arms behind his head, on his back, still in bed, Kick pondered with a serious frown on his face. He was watching the sunlight slowly filtering through the tall window, brightening the room to a blindingly immaculate white, not long after sunrise. Still having plenty of time to spare and then some, he decided to let his buddy sleep some more; he was going to figure out this curious feeling on his own. (Besides, it didn't seem likely that Günter would come up with anything relevant regarding a daredevil's gut instinct… and Kick was pretty sure that's what it was.).

Frowning thoughtfully, he rolled over onto his belly; as he propped his head in his hands, his small elbows sank into the fluffy pillow.

Unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything to have triggered this feeling. He didn't have anything to work with – and _that_, he concluded, as he let his head sink into the pillow, was what bothered him _the most_. Honestly, he was feeling a little silly for getting so worked up too.

Buried up to his cheekbones, staring flatly at the air in front of him, Kick was now hunched into a bundle of sulking unenthusiasm. Breathing in his pillow, the scent of feathers and bleached sheets filled his nostrils, strong enough to make him choke.

Raising his face to inhale proper air, his lungs cleared in a jiffy and he was able to notice something else. He paused in his large intakes of breath and just stood there, motionless for a few moments, eyes widened. He curbed his spine around the tiny trail of something that he could not remember ever having known it was there. Sitting on his hands and knees, searching through the folds of cotton with the sniffing thorough as a dog's, he found the peculiar scent once more.

Like a discreet aftertaste, there was a faint aroma accompanying the smell of clean, crisp sheets. It was so tiny, almost unnoticeable, like it was trying its hardest to hide but afraid of disappearing completely. Compared to the rest of the place- with its _clean_, empty smell- it was fairly exotic. (_Quite out of place, in fact_.) And it was so faint; it was hard to tell what it was, although he was not bothered by it, not really. Actually- in fact- on the contrary-… he found it, strangely enough, _nice_.

It made his senses tingle; it was becoming addictive in its small, subtle dose. It was sweet, pleasantly so, like tropical fruity gumdrops. Like cream tarts with mango._ Like_…

His eyes popped open as he came upon a _totally freaky_ thought…

"_No way. NO. WAY. No way, noway, nowaynowaynowaynoway…!"_

Kick straightened, hands in his lap; he stared blankly at the sheets, trying to let it sink in – understand what his own thoughts had just implied.

_Like a girl's shampoo._

Suddenly, he had memories flash before his eyes, of waking up in the middle of the night to find himself face to face with his very own adoring, unhealthily obsessive, _crazy_ number one fan…

"_Do you know you purr when you sleep?"_

A shudder trailed down his spine. Now shaken to the core, he wondered if he really wanted to know.

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><p>Hours later, Kendall sluggishly opened her eyes, grimacing at the bright sunlight burning her eyelids. She had been curled in a deep thoughtless sleep for so long and yet she felt so very tired her head ached. Silence enveloped the room, telling her that she was the first one to wake up; although the supervising teacher knocking on the other side of the door told her – after she drowsily stumbled out of bed, unlocked and opened the door – that they had slept in and had to hurry because it was almost time for breakfast.<p>

Washing her face in the bathroom to wake herself up, she could hear the rest of her roommates fussing around the room as they got dressed; it went to the back of her mind as she became aware of a peculiar feeling in her gut, like a lead pipe tied into a Gordian knot, trying to pull her down_downdown_…

Oh.

Like a light switch flicked on, she suddenly recalled the events from last night.

_Oh…_

She chocked on toothpaste as she almost swallowed her toothbrush.

- "Yo, Blondie! You alright in there?" Brittany asked from the other side of the bathroom door.

As she tried to regulate her breathing, she recalled more and more clearly the earlier _adventure_, red-faced and an expression of pure disbelief on her face; registering the words of her older roommate, it turned into an aggressively defensive frown, wondering how on earth could she ever even hope to get out of this mess…

She let her forehead rest on the edge of the sink, disheveled blonde hair spilling on both sides of her face.

_No, it' not alright…_She thought numbly_. _

_-_ "Yeah, sure!" she managed to yelp out. "Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

Despite her attempt to take deep calming breaths her stupid heart wouldn't listen.

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><p><strong>So there you have it, Tiger's Den is now a two-shot!<strong> (I'll try to refrain from writing anything more for a while, I have finals... -_-')

**...  
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**Have a nice day, dearies! :)**


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